Vacation!!!

Mark and I left for vacation on last Saturday for our drive up north.  We went to Minneapolis, MN, Sheboygan, WI, and the to Chicago, IL.    It was a 10 hour drive to MN and the first 3 hours were spent in huge rainstorm.  It was terrible....we spent the night in Iowa and made it to Minneapolis Sunday morning.  We couldn't check into the hotel until 3:00 pm so we went to the Mall of America.  OMG!  It was so much fun!!  In this mall, we rode a roller-coaster, played Putt Putt, went to the aquarium, had lunch and walked through the mall.  It was awesome!!!  I did visit a stitching store on Sunday and stitched several ornaments over the week...that will be in the next post.

This roller coaster spun in circles as we went along the tracks.

 What they can do with Legos is just amazing!!!!!

So much fun!!!!

Above the sting ray tanks....

Playing putt putt.....

Sunday evening on the way to dinner..

Monday morning, I went back to the mall and made it through one and half floors.  I did walk in this store and found a fantastic pair of shoes that were 40% off....flipped the shoe over it was originially $385....I put the shoe down and backed slowly out of the store.    Every day of our vacation, Mark played golf in the mornings, while I did some exploring.  We would get back to together in the afternoons to spend the rest of the day together.  

Monday afternoon we went to the zoo.  

 Snow Monkeys were very rambunctious.  I just loved watching the two little babies.  I was able to get a picture of one.

 Bears were playing in the water...

This bear is king of the mountain!

Tuesday, I went back to the Mall of America to finish.  Tuesday afternoon we went to find the Mary Tyler Moore statue downtown. Tuesday night, it was off to the Twins Game!

                                            

Wednesday, we left for Sheboygan, WI.  Mark decided to check out how cold the water was in Lake Michigan.  It was cold!   Thursday, I met up with my friend Kim Ritchie.  We went to Joanns, Hobby Lobby, local Quilt store and a Victorian Candy store.  It was so great to see her!  I haven't seen her in a couple of years!!!  Thanks for diving up to meet with me!!!

Thursday - Saturday was spent in Chicago visiting with Marks sisters and her family.  It was so much fun!  My sister-in-law took my niece and I to the Art Institute to see the miniatures.  Now I want to make a dollhouse!  So disappointed, that we are not closer to Chicago because there is a Fashion Exhibit that starts on June 26th and runs until September 22!  I would LOVE to see it!!!!   Trying to convince Mark that we need to go back before the exhibit is over.....

Decided to drive all the way home in shot, we were greeted at the door with lots of wiggly butts and wagging tongues. 

Sistine Chapel update and Recipes

I am so happy to be on summer break!  I have been going to the pool, reading trashy novels and stitching.  I have such a hard life!!!  Sistine Chapel has been my stitching focus since I got out on break.  I am happy to show off two completed pages!  Bert has this fascination with needles!  He sees them and tries to grab them with his paw or his mouth.   My needle is below his paw.  He thinks he is being a sneaky kitty.

So one of my goals this summer was try several recipes I had pinned on my Pinterest boards.  The first one I tried was a pork loin, and homemade applesauce in the crock pot.  So the pork loin was supposed to have pan drippings...mine didn't turn out!  It was BAD BAD BAD....not sure what I did wrong but the pork was AWESOME!!!  DH wants me to make it again.

Pork Loin Recipe found HERE

 Here is the applesauce I made.  I like my applesauce tart so I cut the water amount in 1/2 and added 1/2 apple cider vinegar.  It made the house smell heavenly.  I forgot that my husband doesn't like tart and after he tasted it, he proceeded to add 1 cup of brown sugar (I was flabbergasted) to my sauce!  He loved it then, to me it was too sweet.  However, I would make it again and not add the apple cider vinegar and just use water.

Crockpot AppleSauce found HERE

My husband will NOT eat any veggies from a can...just flat out refuses.  But I was wanting greenbeans and all I had was canned so....I cooked up some bacon, chopped it up and tossed the canned green beans into the pan with the bacon and bacon grease.  They were yummy.  I set half the beans aside for him and for me, I tossed in some goat cheese!  YUMMY!!!!

Earlier this year, DH ordered 2 gallons of homemade Vermont maple syrup.  What the heck and I supposed to do with 2 gallons of maple syrup??  Make pancakes!  We now have pancake and bacon night every Thursday night.   I found a recipe on pinterest for PANCAKE SQUARES   I don't have a picture of my pancake squares because DH cut into them before I could take the picture.  They were yummy too, however, he told me he preferred his pancakes round and in stacks.  So...I won't be using this one again since it calls for the pancakes to be baked like a cake.  I prefer these...so much easier than having to put them on the griddle and flipping them.

DH favorite Chinese dish is Sweet and Sour Chicken with fried rice.  I pinned this recipe thinking it might turn out.  It was very easy, but messy to make.  DH loved it and wants this on the cook again list.  However, he did tell me NOT to attempt the rice again.  I did something wrong and it tasted funky.  I thought I followed the recipe right but alas, something happened.  It looks pretty though!!!  

                                    

Sweet and Sour Recipe found HERE

Beer Butt Chicken and new Stitching area

Here is my wonderful recliner!!  I love this recliner however, I have sat and stitched in for so long it has sunk in so low that it actually HURTS to sit in it.  I know I just need to take the foam out and replace it but for now I need a stitching area......

So I moved over my chaise lounge.  Can you tell my stitching area is a disaster?????  I love it though...this chair is so comfy and my dog Brigen can sit on it with me comfortably.  There are 3 stitching bags...the one closest to my chair is my Sistine Chapel project, the next one is my HUGE project tote...these are my thirty one bags.  My friend, Shari, sells thirty one so if you need a new stitching bag, then contact her!!!  She will hook you up with something awesome!!!!!

My friend, Berly, had a Pampered Chef party last month and I saw this in the catalog....wondering what it is???  It is a Beer Butt Chicken/Veggie holder for the grill!!!!  My DH LOVES to grill.....so I bought him a toy.  You DO NOT need this to make this chicken....check out the recipe below for tips on how to make without the cool toy.....

You just pop open a beer...we actually had to borrow a beer for this because Arkansas state law states that you cannot buy beer on Sunday.  We aren't big drinkers and don't keep beer in the house. So Mark borrowed a beer from one of his golfing buddies.  Pour out  or drink 1/4 of the can and place it in the can holder...

Slide the chicken butt first onto the can.....We used this RECIPE HERE for the seasoning

Here is our little bird cooking away...doesn't he look yummy????  We use a charcoal grill for our bird

Mark cut the poor bird open before I got a pretty picture....this one looks like carnage has happened!  It was very juicy and yummy!!!!!  

June Workout plans

I am getting myself back into a workout routine.  I found that I do better if I have a daily workout goal I need to meet.   One thing I have been doing is getting up early every morning and walking 2 miles.  I was taking Gibbs and Brigen  with me but there is a house down our street that has a pitbull in the yard that goes into a barking frenzy when we go by his house.   I have to find a new route to take the boys because they freak out when we walk by that house.   

I was searching the health sections of pinterest and I found these wonderful workout calendars for June.  I am doing the Mean Abs and June Tune up everday.  The Dumbbell Arms I will do 3 days a week with DH.   I found the mean abs from the blog titled:  Back on Pointe.  She has some wonderful workouts if you are interested.   The June Tone up is from the blog: Sisterhood of the Shrinking Pants Another great workout blog.   I will take my measurements tomorrow and then again at the end of the month.  Hopefully, I will have lost some inches.   Does anyone want to join me on one or all of these workouts????

Summer Ball and Summer Goals

Here is the last page of Summer Ball.  As you can see, I have reached the midway point of the page.  I just had to put it up.  That darn frog kept visiting me on the mans jacket and pants.  I think I had to frog that section 3 or 4 times.   I will pull it out to work on it later....

Summer Goals:

I always like to come up with a list of things to do during the summer so I won't feel like my summer was a total waste of time.  I usually go to the pool and read a book on a daily basis, not to mention all the TV watching and cross stitching I do.  After thinking about it this week, I came up with some things I want to get accomplished this summer:

1)  Clean out Marks Closet.  The man has so many golf shirts that I am out of hangers.  He doesn't wear half of them and they are just clogging up the closet.

2)  Finish Summer Ball-

3) Finish 2 more panels on Sistine Chapel - Big goal but I think I can do it.

4) Organize my Pinterest Boards.  They are a mess!!!

5) Try at least 3 of my Pinterest Recipes each week.   I have over 1,000 pinned so I want to try them out.

6) Make a Quilt for my bed.   Right now I have a cream comforter on it but with the boys being on the bed all the time...it isn't cream anymore.  I want to make a blue/brown/cream quilt.  These colors should hide the dog fur!

I think these are some great goals! Here is hoping I can actually do them!